Summer's end

26 August 2014

This week was always bittersweet for me as a kid. In Minnesota, public school began the day after Labor Day, so this week was all about squeezing the last of summer freedom for everything you could. But it was also about the nerves starting over what the new school year would bring.

Then I went on to University, where it was a quarter system and school didn’t start until right around the equinox and beginning of fall. So the summer stretched into September and I experienced the quiet, calm joy of everyone else being back in school while I got to relax a few more weeks.

Ever since finishing school and just being a part of the workaday world, summer doesn’t end this week. Especially living in Portland, where September is one of the best months weatherwise, summer just keeps going.

The forces of the school year schedule are strong, but I relish breaking out as an adult and living life by the seasons as they truly present themselves. Portland’s weather is much closer to the starting of seasons than anywhere I’ve ever lived, with summer starting in late June, fall in late September, the cold weather coming in December and our glorious long spring begins in March.

For all of you like me, with nothing dictating that this is the end of summer, celebrate that we actually have a few more weeks to go!